Posts by Nick Collingridge

Get a Skoda Octavia Scout (or even a 4x4) and you'll get the same carrying capacity, better off-road (if you need it), probably better economy, much better performance, all wrapped up in a car that is fun to drive - and cheaper to buy! If you don't want a Skoda, then get the Seat equivalent, or even (in a few months) a VW Golf Alltrack. The only difference is that it doesn't look like a pseudo/vanity "4x4".

Re: Well (@fmaxwell)

@AJMacLeod - Look, mate, this is a totally idiotic tack to take and I am beginning to totally despair of idiots like you. Attacking people who are working at researching the science behind anything because that science says something you don't want to believe is just beyond stupid. Hear me - beyond stupid. It is totally asinine.

The only science you will accept is that which says what you want to hear. How rational is that? How much further does that get us?

Ostriches like you are what give a bad name to humanity. Lift your head up and take a proper reasoned look at the science. You will find that this whole subject has had a vast amount of attention paid to it by a very large number of very clever and dedicated people. Do you honestly, honestly believe that all of these scientists are so dishonest and self-interested hat they will devise studies that are not true?

This is just not credible and you are an absolute idiot if you let yourself believe it.

Sorry for the rant, but it is starting to really get to me how anyone can present such an unbalanced and irrational view and expect to have any credibility at all in this world.

Re: Race to the bottom...on your marks!

@ Mike 102: Rubbish post - very confusing argument, not even well made.

Let's say, just hypothetically, that there are some outsourced services which are better than in-house equivalents on all measures, including customer satisfaction, cost, knowledge of staff and flexibility. What proportion of outsourced services do you think that these represent? In my experience it is a pretty low proportion. The motivation of the company employing them is simple - saving money. The motivation of the service provider is also simple - maximising their profit, generally by minimising their costs.

Where does customer satisfaction factor into all of this? After the event, if at all, and generally lost in the quibbling over what the SLA actually requires. By the time that things come to a head the employing company's reputation is trashed, the service provider have extracted as much profit as they can get away with and the bean-counters (and the lawyers) are happy but no-one else is, least of all the customers.

But every naive and gullible management team continues to believe when entering into these contracts that the Holy Grail of cost reduction at the same time as acceptable customer satisfaction really is achievable. Total idiots.

At some point the market is going to start to have an effect on BT. At present many if not most customers stick to BT because of inertia and more to the point not knowing the true basis on which they pay for their service.

Do YOU know exactly how much you are paying per minute for different types of calls? BT do not put this information on their bills and even if they did you would find it confused by "call set-up charges" and various other devices, not to mention additional charges for "Calling Features" and so on.

If Ofgem ever wakes up and makes BT spell out on their bills the basis of the costs you have incurred it will become much easier to compare costs with other providers. At that point the market will kick in properly (at present it is not having much effect) and BT will lose a lot more of their business than they have retained so far.

Re: Give me a break...

There's a world of difference between free speech on the one hand and peddling distorted and biased journalism on the other. Journalists have a responsibility to get to the bottom of issues, not just trot out their pet theories.

It is totally clear to any casual observer that Page has a very specific axe to grind and he does so to the exclusion of balance. This is the definition of poor journalism.

I will readily withdraw this criticism of him on the day that he presents one piece of the mountain of evidence that is on the other side of the argument.

Re: Home & Work Light?

LEDs work absolutely fine for us - we have replaced nearly all lights in the house (apart from a few remaining CFLs) with LED and the light quality is wonderful in my view. I have used the "Warm white" LEDs (around 3000k nominally) and the colour rendering is very much better than CFLs and about the same as halogen - the problem with CFLs always used to be certain foods (such as red meat) just appeared the wrong colour, but this problem does not occur with LEDs.

Get on with it!

Not doing anything about greenhouse gas emissions "just yet" is exactly like not saving for your pension "just yet". Keep waiting and the cost of a realistic level of provision compounds dramatically. That is why it is important to get things moving now rather than waiting until... when exactly?

You can always make the excuse that now is not the time to do it, but all the time the CO2 in particular is building up in the atmosphere and stays there for at least 100 years.

There is a finite amount we can afford to put up there so the longer we delay, the bigger the challenge will be to reduce our emissions to a level that will not cause us problems; or alternatively the worse the resulting problems will be for us all.

Instead of pooh-poohing the attempts of governments to get on with the job it would be much better to be critical of those governments which are really dragging their feet.

This really is the ultimate example of the tragedy of the commons, a concept that the American right wing in particular (and parts of the Tory party) would do well to try and understand.

Re: Huh?

@Asgard

In what way is Apple irrevocably "tied to its premium business model". What a totally stupid thing to say. Have you never considered that they may be running their business incredibly astutely, by riding the curve of margin against volume? They are probably selling every phone/tablet they can make at the moment, and at the same time MAKING 75% OF THE PROFIT OF THE WHOLE PHONE INDUSTRY with the iPhone.

Why would they change this? If they bring their prices down the demand will increase but how will they make them, and the only effect will be that they will make the same overall amount of profit but over many more units, which will depress their margin and increase their support costs.

In addition, if I were Apple I would be trying to keep my market share at about 45% or so as this does not add up to a monopoly, which would trigger all sorts of problems. People, not to mention governments, don't like monopolies.

One other interesting fact is that although in terms of units sold they may only be at 45%, just look at what percentage of mobile internet traffic these devices produce. This is clear indication that people who buy iPhones keep their devices for much longer than Android purchasers do, which is not surprising given that the Android device manufacturers are so focused on hardware capabilities (because this, along with price, is the only real way they can differentiate their products) that Android purchasers are as a result much more likely to upgrade to the next big thing than iPhone users. So Apple are almost certainly winning the war of phones in use, which is key to getting developers and networks to focus on their products - the long game.

And finally just look at what a commanding position their strategy has created. How many more units would they sell if they reduced their prices (if they could make them, that is!). They would decimate Android sales if they sold them at the same price as comparable Android phones.

So in conclusion you just don't understand business strategy - Apple are playing this in an incredibly canny fashion and that is why they will still be around in the future. I have severe doubts that other players such as HTC and Nokia will - or maybe you differ on that?

Re: Meanders in the northern jet stream

A quick précis of their theory is that the atmosphere in the sub-tropics is heating and expanding, and this is pushing the jet streams progressively towards the poles.

I have also seen suggestions that the ice cover on the Barents Sea has disappeared and this means that instead of reflecting the sun's IR it is now being absorbed, and the relative heat from this is affecting the course of the jet streams.

Re: Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

Great solution - "exterminate" those who say things you don't like. You may not change the truth, but if there's no-one left to speak it you then you can all just go an as usual, pretending that all is well.

What a brilliant idea. Get your gas chambers out now! It'll be worth it when you've cleansed the world of people who say things you don't like to hear.

Re: So where is CO2 going

@ The Axe: Do you REALLY think that journalists do the job you describe? Then you are very very naive. Most of them just peddle whatever line their paper follows, and this is done to keep their readers loyal.

So if you're like the Daily Mail or the Telegraph, for example, which are basically neo-liberal mouthpieces, you won't publish anything that supports the science of AGW because your readers want to believe that we can go on consuming in the same old way forever (BAU).

Therefore you need to select your news sources very carefully to get the "truth" and in practice no paper prints the absolute truth across all subjects; they all have their areas of blindness and promote certain ideologies or perspectives.

No, the only way to get to the "truth" is to go back to, in this case, the science and look into it sufficiently to be able to form an educated opinion. I have done this and I find it very hard to believe that anyone who has also done so could reject AGW science.

@ Norfolk n goode: In what way is the opposite view being ignored? If you look into this subject even in a cursory way you would understand that EVERY theory is examined with care and accepted or refuted. That's the scientific process and it is definitely being followed. Don't just believe what you want to believe - do the research and you will discover that nothing is rejected until the work has been done on it. It's just that the denialist theories never stack up when exposed to scientific rigour.

That's not to say that the science is fixed - it's not, and that's the nature of science. But one thing is scientifically as certain as anything can be - the world is warming, and we are largely the cause. This largely hinges on basic physics which cannot be disputed. What still has to be determined is EXACTLY what will happen, but we already know more than enough to know that we shouldn't be heading on in our foolhardy path without moderation.

Very well said

@PJI - beautifully put. The only thing I would add is that the science behind the cause of the warming IS very robust and no-one has yet countered it successfully in any measure at all. It depends to a large degree on basic physics which is irrefutable - just do the research. What is somewhat uncertain is exactly what will happen - it's the future, after all, and no-one can ever know EXACTLY what will happen.

But that doesn't by ANY means suggest that nothing is known - we already have lots of evidence of what is happening with the moderate amount of warming we've had so far, and it's indisputably going to get much worse into the future unless we do something about it. The science of this will continue to evolve but we undoubtedly already know more than enough to know that things need to change to reduce our emissions.

There are NO get-outs for this - people have been hunting for them for YEARS and they have not come up with anything which meets examination. This is the unpalatable but real truth, whatever people would like to believe.

Let's see the other side emails!

What I would like to see is the emails between those who are opposing the science of AGW - they would make interesting reading. Does anyone SERIOUSLY imagine that they wouldn't reveal a blatant conspiracy to undermine the science?

Put in that context the totally tame stuff that emerges from the "climategate" emails (and that name alone is clear evidence that nefarious interests are trying to talk up their impact) would not be of great significance.

I know that those who do not want to believe in the science think there's a big conspiracy afoot - what about the undeniable conspiracy on the other side which is proved by the hacking of the CRU emails amongst many other activities? Why no cynicism about that? Let's face it, the deniers don't even have any science on their side.

Nothing's perfect - why not try and get things in perspective for once? This was the 5.0 release, after all, not the 5.01, and anyone who knows anything about technology knows that getting something absolutely without any errors on the .0 release is never going to happen. The fact that this is the only problem that is attracting any complaints, and even then only for a small proportion of users, is almost as good as it is ever going to get. Is there any other platform that is closer to perfect with its .0 releases? Honestly?

The long game - a complex subject for a simpleton?

Why not do an article on how Apple are totally in control of the smartphone marketplace. They are by a very great distance the company making the most profits out of smartphones, and it has been achieved through smart (that's SMART) positioning and strategy. No-one else has the triple whammy they have of premium product, successful media store and successful app store.

Not to mention the many other synergies that they have created between their products. That's why the sum of their sales will always be greater than other players who are only present typically in one space.

As a result they control the market - all they would have to do is shift their pricing slightly and, while still being enormously more profitable than any other player, they could increase their market share dramatically at the expense of the other players who are already on wafer-thin margins due to the number of players that are all competing for a slice of the (effectively non-differentiatable) action.

Look at them all - Samsung, HTC, Acer, LG et all - all continuously pumping out multiple products that are only differentiated on hardware features when most people couldn't give a rat's arse about these aspects of the products. All of these different hardware products cost a fortune to develop but they can't get any great economies of scale because each individual product only commands a fraction of the market size that the iPhone has. What commercial sense does this make?

These companies are squeezed every which way - and the author of this article is naive enough to believe that it is Apple that is getting desperate. Give us a break! Grow up a bit (a lot) and go and do a degree course in marketing strategy before you foist such total and utter tripe on us again. Please - for all our sakes - unless maybe you just like giving people an easy laugh at your expense. It's all about the long game, and no-one in their right mind would suggest that Apple are being anything other than extremely canny in playing it.

Android is a broken model for so many reasons

Another key point when entering a market is being able to maintain marketing momentum. Apple are the masters at this - they have a limited range of products which enables them to get maximum awareness for minimum bucks.

Additionally, and this is something that the techy types totally fail to get, by limiting the available choice of products they make the buying decision much easier for the vast vast majority of customers. On the Apple side the decision is simple - you buy an iPhone, and it's a perfectly good (and highly competitive) product.

On the Android side, however, it's so much more complicated, and most customers are just not equipped to decide between different products. Should I get a Galaxy S or a Desire. Or a Hero or an Xperia? Or any one of 100 different models (according to the Phandroid site). That's too much choice for most people - buying an iPhone is easy and what's more, most people who have them think they're great and tell everyone else that's what they think.

Added to this is the fact that when Apple upgrade the OS they bring the last generation or two along with them. But with Android you're often stuck with whatever version of the OS the phone shipped with, or at best a grudging upgrade comes out six or more months later than it first hits the market. This is because the phone manufacturers are really just interested in selling more phones, and a new version of Android helps them in this. They have no real interest in Android itself and keeping customers loyal. That's down to Google, but they are not the suppliers of the phone.

Android is good competition for Apple and may hit some good sales numbers overall because of the vast number of products flooding the market. But the chances of any one handset being a financial success for its manufacturer is realistically very slim and getting slimmer all the time. It is a pretty broken model when all's said and done...

Don't put Apple down just because you want them to fail

I entirely agree with Ralph 5, but just wanted to add some comments of my own:

Let's face it - competition is GOOD, and the more competition there is for Apple in this space the better for all of us. Having said that, even the journalists amongst us (who love to imagine that anything successful is bound to be overtaken soon) should be prepared to admit that Apple's i devices are pretty decent in all respects.

I bought a current model Android phone a couple of weeks ago to make sure that I knew what Android was all about, and I have to say that the whole experience is pretty weak in comparison with an iPhone. It is clunky and inelegant in comparison, and just not very nice to use. It also seems much less stable than my iPhone.

Now I'm not saying that the iPhone is perfect - of course it isn't - but any truly objective observer must admit that it's way closer to a professionally executed product than Android is at present.

If we move on to the iPad, again you have to admit that it is a great achievement for a first version of a product. It works very reliably and elegantly, and furthermore it is clear that no competitor has been able to get close to it on price and quality. This may change in time, but even more importantly Apple has a big lead in terms of being prime mover, and of course they won't stand still. So for any products hitting the market right now to just equal where the iPad is now is obviously not going to be enough to steal any significant market share.

This is the reality of the marketplace, not the addled dreams of journalists wanting Apple to fail. As I said at the beginning of this comment, competition is GOOD, and it is great that some proper competition for Apple in this space may be starting to emerge. But entering the market is not the same as dominating it, and my bet is that Apple will still be dominating this market for some time to come.

Calm down...

Most amusing, The Other Steve, such anger! Do you really think it increases the credibility of your argument? Aggression is generally the recourse of the ignorant, and calling people names like utter prat and fucktard does not advance rational debate but is simply the approach of a bully. And bullies are not known for their rationality.

To do you the courtesy of a measured response to your unhinged questioning, firstly the answer to my question redirected at me is that like most people I don't want to have to change my lifestyle. The only reason that I am prepared to do so is that I have put a lot of time and effort into understanding the science and the research that has been done and I have become reluctantly convinced that there really is something very worrying happening.

It is tempting to me as to others to simply dismiss it all with assertions that it is all an invention of a vast number of dishonest scientists funded by dishonest governments and research bodies throughout the world, but I just don't believe that is credible. Particularly because the basic physics is not in question.

I can't respond to your assertion that I have just swallowed the Guardian's views of the IPCC reports because that is not what I have done.

You obviously feel that I am an utter prat because I find the science compelling. I can't see that can be defended as rational unless we are leaving the rational world for one of blind belief - you have not presented any rational defence of your views other than to say you don't agree with me.

And in no way did I say anything about anyone being an ignorant Tory, unless you equate reading the Telegraph with being an ignorant Tory - which is not an assertion that I made.

I suggest you go and make yourself a nice cup of tea and relax before you post again.

Examination of motives needed

Quite right.

Now look, folks, we are meant to be intelligent beings capable of RATIONAL thought. I suggest that anyone of a contrarian bent steps back for just a few seconds and thinks long and hard about their underlying motives for their view. Are you honestly trying to approach the issue from a purely objective perspective, putting any love of consumption or political views on one side, or do you have some personal reason for holding your views?

On top of this, how deeply have you actually looked into the science? Do you thoroughly understand the physics of the greenhouse effect? Have you read the IPC reports rather than just swallowed what the Telegraph says about them? Do you appreciate that the "climategate" emails do not change the science that has been conducted around the world, and that the few trivial errors in the IPC reports do not invalidate the vast bulk of their content? To claim otherwise is

Scepticism is an important part of science, but outright rejection of thorough science on the basis of "I don't want it to be true" is not the same thing at all. When you actually look into the science from as objective a position as you can manage it is impossible to dismiss the weight of the internally-consistent analysis and physical evidence all pointing to the fact that our actions are causing the climate to change, with results that are currently impossible to accurately predict.

But the fact that we cannot predict the future does not mean that we don't know enough to know that we should be very concerned indeed. There is much that never gets through to the public - an example of this is what Phenology (the study of plant and animal life cycles) is telling us about how wildlife is getting royally screwed up by the effect that the fast-changing timing of the seasons is having on the food-chain. And we know that in the past the world has "snapped" between steady states but we can't know (because we have never lived through such a change) what it takes to trigger such a change.

We really are like children playing with a grenade which may or may not be live, and not knowing when the pin might fall out as we kick it around.

Just why would they choke on their muesli?

This doesn't change anything at all if you actually tried to understand it rather than just soak up the incredibly ignorant twist the contrarians are trying to apply. Come on, people, why not just TRY a little bit? If this does turn out to be valid (and everyone is admitting it's much too early to know) then it would reinforce the position that AGW were true, not defeat it. This is a fantastic example of how ignorant the contrarians are and they've really shot themselves in the foot over it by trying to claim that it supports their views.

The science is sound

I don't think you can have really looked into the science, which rather invalidates your assertion here. The physics of the greenhouse effect is pretty incontrovertible - it's physics after all, even if some of it is quite complex. No-one has disproved it, however much they've tried.

The only thing that is really in question is exactly what is likely to happen in the future, and the worrying thing is that it seems like it is more likely to be worse than projections so far than better.

The frustrating thing to truth-seekers is the pathetic dissembling that goes on all the time, and the sheep out there who don't want Human-caused climate change to be true just lap it all up without questioning it or looking into things in any depth at all.

We CAN cope with parallel issues

Why do they have to be either/ors? That's just silly. Both of these issues are crucial and no-one that I am aware of is saying the population issue is not a problem and that we only have to fix carbon emissions.

The problem is that reducing the population is politically MUCH harder than all of us using energy less wastefully. Unless you want to station cops in everyone's bedrooms so they don't get up to any population-increasing activities without having some protection in place?

No, the answer is to pursue both in parallel but we should be able to get more immediate traction on the carbon issue as long as we don't all continue to act like particularly stupid lemmings.

Not Jesus

There might be something in this IF Apple or their products were perfect. But they're not. They make mistakes, and their products have flaws. However on balance their products are sufficiently less problematic and more inspired than their competitors that people like me choose to use them rather than those of their competitors.

But if there were better alternatives I would switch to them in an instant. What is frustrating to people who defend Apple is that there are a small coterie of people who oppose them seemingly out of prejudice or misplaced principle rather than on a basis of fact, and the illogicality and lack of objectivity of that approach exasperates people and leads them to defend the truth.

But once again I would reiterate that Apple are NOT flawless, divine or virtuous - just somewhat less flawed (for a very successful corporate entity) than many of the alternatives.

You just don't get it...

Sorry, but you lot of commenters are just plain wrong. You obviously don't like it for some weird reason, but for a large number of people the iPad (or a similar device) will be absolutely exactly what they need to get on with their job.

You can keep your doorstop full-function laptops if you want, but why do you think that everyone else would want or need one as well? For people who spend most (or even only some) of their time in meetings the iPad is perfect and will be much more suitable than any other device. That's just the way it is.

Put your prejudice on one side and try thinking for once about how everyone else lives their lives. It really doesn't matter (no, honestly) whether you like the iPad or not - believe me, in a few years there will be hundreds of millions of these devices around; and Apple will have the lion's share of the market simply because they clearly and obviously understand this type of product better than anyone else does. It's not rocket science but no-one else so far gets it...

Ideal support device

@David Cherry 1 - Of COURSE it can run Logmein, VNC, have a WiFi signal strength detector and have all of your manuals loaded onto it. At least, as far as the last one is concerned, it will do once they become available electronically which they obviously will soon if not already. You know that the iPhone can do all of those things already (you are an IT expert, I presume, so you SHOULD know that) so the iPad will definitely do them.

Yes

It depends on the observation...

But it depends on the observation.

If we're looking at a straight comparison between the surface of the Earth and the Moon, both of which are at the same distance from the Sun, it is clear that there must be something to explain why one is warm enough for us to live on without heating, whereas the other one isn't, even if one corrects for the difference in atmospheric pressure.

Whilst the exact workings of the atmosphere are very complex when examined in detail, the existence of greenhouse effect, which is derived from the basic physical principles of the elements involved, does clearly explain why one is hot and one is not.

Rationality and reason rule

Come on, get with the game...

So what's new? Are you REALLY that naive?

Third party memory suppliers have ALWAYS offered cheaper memory upgrades than computer manufacturers. Crucial are a great supplier as an example and already list the new Mac Minis - their prices are £12.99 for 1GB, £22.99 for 2GB and £45.99 for 4GB (inc postage). All you need to do is put in a little bit of effort to break the thing open and slot the memory in yourself.

Crazy crazy crazy

This idea is completely dumb because (just in case someone hasn't been following what's going on in the world) the fossil fuels needed to power something like this ARE RUNNING OUT.

Not straight away, but we're already into the zone where demand is outstripping supply. Even the Chief Executive of BP is on record (FT article, June 11th) as saying that we only have 40 years of supply left. And, for obvious reasons, that's probably overstating it. What's more, all the easy and good stuff has been plundered in the past, so what's left is the harder and less easily refined stuff.

So something like this project is just stupid given that in, let's say (optimistically) twenty years time fossil fuels are going to be in much shorter supply and will probably be desperately needed just to keep our civilisation going. Unless we've entirely switched over to renewable sources of energy by then, and who thinks that's going to happen?

What a total waste of time, energy and effort something like this is in the modern world. I'm delighted to see that the powers that be have (unusually) some common sense about this ridiculous project, even if their concerns are coming from other, and equally valid, directions.

Appletalk?

What's the point of Appletalk support if there's no AFP - or is that what you meant? If they're really serious about working optimally with Macs they should be offering AFP 3.0 or greater and Bonjour support for easy discovery. Appletalk is pretty much totally redundant nowadays.

Do you care more about yourself or other people?

Let's face it - most of the AGW denialists have basically never grown beyond the point at which they are so self-centered that they just want to be able to do whatever they want to do - irrespective of its impact on anyone else (most people grow beyond this stage when they leave their teens). As a result they just don't want to believe in AGW because it might mean they will have to modify their behaviour.

Essentially this is the Jeremy Clarkson syndrome, and there's no one more developmentally retarded than he is! If it were to come to a choice between Al Gore and Jeremy Clarkson, I know which one I'd trust my future to...

So what about this whole big thing of "the scientists are all in it together and they just want to perpetuate the AGW thing because they get their funding from it". Well so far I have seen lots of people make this tenuous claim as a potential motive, but that's all it is - a potential motive. That in itself doesn't even begin to make it true.

It MIGHT be true of some scientists, but no-one knows how many. I would hazard a guess that it's at best a pretty small percentage of them - having met some of them I know how genuine their view and concern is. It certainly can't be described as being ALL of them - that would be an unimaginably vast conspiracy and is just not credible, unless you really are a crazed conspiracist.

Two sides of the debate

One of the fundamental problems I have with the anti-AGW types is that they are very rarely rational in their views. They continually demonstrate their disdain for people who care about our future, denigrating them as "a-hole"s, "tiresome greens" or "dweebs" who are part of an "unfortunate section of society".

This attitude demonstrates such a lack of a balanced perspective that it ruins any chance of them being taken seriously. Rudeness and an irrational hatred for anyone who disagrees with them are typical characteristics of the neocon right winger who only sees the world from a money-focused perspective, without the ability to appreciate the concept of greater good.

I am reassured to see that the balance of comments to this post so far are from the more educated and concerned side of the debate. Global warming is happening without any doubt at all. I don't think that James Pickett can seriously believe that it ceased in 1998 unless he just hasn't looked into the science at all, but his baseless assertion is very typical of those who try to deny that we have a problem ahead of us.

For the record, 1998 was a particularly hot year, mainly because of an El Nino event. 2008 promises to be a cooler year as a result of the La Nina event that is happening now. These two years are examples of why you cannot take any one year in isolation as evidence of anything. You have to look at the long term trends, and these are clearly heading strongly upwards. It will take a few more years before this is clear again, unfortunately, but this evidence is only part of the picture - what is happening around the world is strong supporting evidence.

It's very easy to stick your head in the sand and pretend that nothing is happening - it means that you can continue to do nothing to modify your lefstyle without so much guilt. But can all of those people who act in this way honestly say that they don't have even a sneaking worry that they may be wrong?

That attitude is almost the definition of the phrase ignorant compacency, and people who proceed in this way should really reflect on whether by not looking into the science (as they clearly cannot have done) they are not betraying any claim to be a rational person.

Your language betrays you

@ Andrew Moore: Such evident and excessively expressed disdain simply marks you out as narrow- and closed-minded (and immature in not being able to express yourself without swearing). Just because you can't see that the iPhone has an elegant and, more important, eminently useable interface doesn't mean that it isn't so, or make it untrue that the vast majority of people appreciate the iPhone for what it does so well.

Almost unbelievable...

I can't believe the hysteria of all the people who are so desperate to attack Leopard because it is not absolutely perfect at release. Shall we step back and look at this in a more rational light? There seem so far to be two issues with the initial release of Leopard - firstly that a long-obsolete version of a hack (APE) causes systems to fail to boot correctly. This problem can be corrected and it doesn't cause any damage to the operating system installation, but it's obviously unfortunate. But this is just ONE incompatible piece of software we're talking about.

Secondly the fact that the latest version of Java is not YET available on Leopard. This is an issue that only really affects developers and will probably be resolved shortly. Yes, Apple should provide more information on this issue and (hopefully) they probably will. The VAST majority of people will not be affected in any way whatsoever by this issue.

And that appears to be it. These are the only two issues after the release of a new version of an operating system that has been VEY substantially overhauled top to bottom, probably to an equivalent degree to the overhaul that Vista represented over XP, but in just 2.5 years rather than the 5 years that Vista took.

Is it surprising that Apple supporters feel that those who are trying to blow this up are making somewhat of a mountain out of an anthill? Can you lot honestly say that Vista had an equivalently low number of problems at release? That is, that there were otherwise no problems with performance, drivers not being available, application compatibility, user acceptance, or the 64 bit transition with full compatibility with all apps and drivers?

Come on, get real! Look at yourselves in this light and you can understand why Apple supporters think that you are somewhat ridiculous in your attempts to make mileage out of all of this...

Global warming - case for human cause

In response to Arthur Lemay's post:

Your post is full of supposition and inaccuracies, and does not in any way prove that global warming is not caused by man, as you claim. You seem driven by some neo-con agenda relating to a totally libertarian (or anarchistic) view of how society should work rather than a rational appreciation of the available evidence.

For example - the NASA measurements apply only to the USA, as is clearly mentioned in the article, yet you claim that they show there has been no warming since 1998. This is not true on a global basis, as is very clearly stated in the article.

You also state that CO2 variations of fractions of 1% cannot possibly control the whole. If you had looked into the science behind anthropogenic global warming theory you would know that this is not claimed in any way. CO2 concentration is just one factor, but it IS a significant one (along with the other human-emitted greenhouse gases which you appear to ignore) and furthermore as concentrations grow its influence is growing. In addition in this current cycle it is the one which is changing quickly and it is the one which we know that we are affecting.

Water vapour does have a significant effect but it is short-term in its duration (it is always cycling between ground and air) and is a feedback factor rather than a primary forcing agent. Its concentration in the atmosphere can therefore be affected by the presence of primary agents such as greenhouse gases.

You are very disdainful of the vast amount of highly detailed science which is behind global warming theory. This has been derived from a number of different directions, including the basic physics of the materials involved and observations of prior behaviour. Take a look at http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm for the detailed science. Also try looking at the VAST amount of activity on the web in debating and analysing global warming. This addresses repeatedly the claims made by sceptics which are very well covered by the science behind the theory. And yet again and again people trot out these pet objections which have long been consigned to history through debate.

One highly significant point that sceptics always ignore is that the current speed of change of global temperatures is unprecedented and therefore impossible to explain through purely natural causes. Corresponding to this rate of change, the only factor that is changing at a similar fast pace is greenhouse gas concentrations, which we know as a fact are being caused by humans. We are already "off the graph" and entering uncharted territory which should concern every responsible person who isn't totally brainwashed by the neo-con theories of personal liberty at all costs.

Ironically, although you claim that Governments are hell bent on taking control over everything and that they are therefore the root of current global warming theory, in practice most governments, and certainly our own here in the UK, have done practically nothing to control or even influence our behaviour in this respect. So it is very hard to see any connection unless you really are an incredibly paranoid conspiracy theorist. Or, in your own words, a moron.

Office 07 is a disaster for M$

2. The ribbon is, let's face it, no better for most people than menus. It's unfamiliar and annoying, and more to the point there's seemingly no way (that I've found) to default it to the collapsed form where it's somewhat like menus. This means that you're always faced with a large part of the screen consumed with the ribbon when what most people want is a nice large area to be able to work on the document. Which is fundamentally what the software is for although MS don't seem to appreciate this.

3. Using a new default document format is extremely annoying for people. There's no end of documents flying backwards and forwards now with annoyed comments from people not able to open them. Yes, you can set a default to use "compatibility mode" but most people don't know how to do that. This one will run and run and just increase the animosity towards Office 07 every time it happens to someone. If MS were in any way user oriented they would have popped up a message on first use asking the user which format they wanted to standardize on, but user friendliness is never their agenda.

4. A trialware install of Office 2007 will really piss people off when they get all of the problems above, and then have to go through the hassle of uninstalling so that they can go back to a sensible version like 2003.

Killing the goose

I can honestly say that listening to Radio Paradise has caused me to buy more CDs (or iTunes downloads) by artists I wouldn't have otherwise heard than any other source. Killing the goose means there will be no golden eggs from this music listener in future.

There is no alternative to some of the excellent internet radio stations out there like Radio Paradise and KCRW - all over-the-air stations waste most of their broadcast time with DJs spouting off on their own ego trips and playing music from a playlist, which means that you don't get anything like the variety you get from internet radio that unveils the good new stuff.

More thorough analysis needed here...

Isn't EnergyStar a US programme? So the big news here is that the EU is adopting a US set of standards, which isn't even mentioned in your piece. Also you don't say whether the standard which will be used is the new more rigorous EnergyStar 4.0 or an earlier version. Come on, get with the game!

Low energy - phooey

I don't know how they end up with a "low energy" device that consumes so MUCH power. I run a Mac Mini as a home server and it consumes only about 70W in total, including two external 3.5" hard drives connected via Firewire. Been running faultlessly (using MacOS X Server) for over 250 days, too.

Efficiency

Amazing how those who don't understand climate change are the first to be rude, insulting, or just incapable of expressing themselves in good English.

It's not worth spending the time to address thoroughly all of the misguided points made above, but for David, who is very quick to say that someone is a complete idiot (although it's not clear who exactly he's referring to), I'll address the question of efficiency.

Firstly you need to define what you mean by efficiency. Aerodynamic drag is only one very narrow measure of efficiency. Motor vehicles are primarily devices to transport people from one place to another. So a more reasonable measure of efficiency might be how much raw energy (in the form of fuel) needs to be provided to the device in order to achieve this.

I am not aware of any vehicle that can transport four or more people from one place to another AND travel at 200mph yet deliver a fuel consumption figure of even 20mpg, let alone 60mpg which is entirely feasible if the right design criteria are pursued. So by this broader measure a 200mph vehicle cannot be considered to be efficient, no matter how areodynamic it might be.

Not quite as thorough a review as it could be...

A pretty basic review to go with a pretty basic box. Some of the things that I would have liked to see explicitly covered in the review:

1. Support for UPNP AV - my guess from the review is that this isn't there, but it's not mentioned.

2. Support for AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) natively rather than just SMB/CIFS - as above.

3. Power consumption - low power consumption is one of the big reasons in my view for using a NAS box rather than a fuller-featured server.

Writing good reviews means addressing as many questions that someone might have about a product as possible, not just mentioning the things that immediately come to mind.

As things stand I can't see in what ways this beats one of the Infrant boxes, which do feature all of the above along with many others features. Mentioning more of the technically leading competitive products (such as the Infrant, Thecus and Excito products) in the review might have helped as well to make it more comprehensive.